A Real Yes
by dreambeliever617
Summary: Inspired by a discussion about whether Logan and Rory are ready for marriage...and also inspired by a ridiculously bad cold I have! I  plan to continue...a visit to Stars Hollow is up next. Reviews are deeply appreciated, especially if they're kind :
1. Chapter 1

A REAL YES-REVISED!

**A Real Yes**

"Is this a _real _yes?" Logan asked. He looked right at her with eyes that held a depth and seriousness surprising to those who noticed only his perpetually playful smirk and his "party or perish" reputation.

"Well, I didn't bother with a certificate of authentication or anything," Rory replied, sounding less playful and more on edge than she'd intended. Not that she was able to gauge her own tone too effectively at the moment: she had a common (but still uncommonly annoying) cold that had blocked part of her hearing and rendered her voice almost unrecognizable. "Seriously," she continued, putting down her book just long enough to reach for more tissues, "it's a _real_ yes. Go, enjoy, and tell everyone I say hi….ACTUALLY, PRETEND I SAID SOMETHING MORE INTERESTING THAN HI. I TRUST YOU TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING TYPICALLY -"

"You'll be missed," Logan said, heading to the door at an uncharacteristically slow pace. "By me especially, not just by 'everyone.'"

Rory wanted to say she'd miss him, too, but somehow the words seemed stuck in her raw, strep-infected throat. Besides, she told herself, when had she been the kind to sit around "missing" a guy who'd be gone just a few hours? She had her beloved books, and her even more beloved Mom and best friend (yes, they were the same person) was just a quick, 100-words-per-minute phone call away. She wasn't the type of girl who needed her boyfriend surgically attached to her on a Saturday night just to feel content, even/especially one she loved with the absurd intensity that she did Logan-or at least she sincerely didn't _want _to be that girl, which her cold medicine-addled mind told her should count for something. So she just said a breezy "see you", and when he started to turn around to give her a hug and kiss goodnight, she reminded him not very gently that she was probably contagious, and more than probably not in the mood to be touched.

He made it a few steps closer to the door before he turned around again. "So, not to dig up the past, which you know that I of all people think should usually stay buried-"

Rory nervously cut him off. "Logan, I'm too weak to USE A shovel right now."

Logan smiled at her, and then continued anyway. "Let me do the manual labor, then, okay? It's just that occasionally you've said you're okay when you-and we-are not actually okay at all. Which I get, but sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between that real yes we've been talking about and "I'll _say_ yes because I don't want to cause a conflict or risk anyone on earth ever being mad at me, but deep down I _really _mean no, and the secret resentment I harbor will come out in all sorts of unintended, us-hurting ways."

"Guess the third time you had to take Psych 101 really was the charm for you, huh?" Rory said, smiling weakly. "Maybe you can go into practice with Paris's life coach instead of the whole 'inheriting a media empire' thing."

Logan sat down in a chair that was about halfway between the couch she was sprawled out on and the front door. "So I kind of feel like I should go tonight. It's Finn's birthday, and with the way he drinks and the number of husbands who tend to come after him with shotguns once they hear what he does with their wives, who knows how many birthdays the guy has left?"

"Agreed," Rory said, her brown ponytail nodding along for emphasis. "You _should_ go. It's just that…"

"That you don't want me to?"

Rory nodded, sniffling miserably into a Kleenex. "And it's _not _because I'm one of those girls who always needs her boyfriend within validation distance," she said firmly, forgetting for a minute that that accusation had come from somewhere deep in her own mind, not from Logan himself.

"You? You've got a ton of non-me interests, people you're close to, and lofty goals to one day break scoops from the ditches of various war zones," Logan agreed readily. "Plus, you need your alone time, or you start to act like an extra from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. It's a good thing I've got this slightly oversized ego, or it'd be enough to make a guy feel unimportant. So, all that established, what's with wanting my company more than usual on this particular evening?"

"Because," Rory burst out, with an intensity she had no idea she felt until it started tumbling out of her mouth, "I need to know you can handle _this." _She lifted one pale arm from underneath her blanket long enough to wave it rather dramatically around the room.

Logan followed the back and forth motion of her arm with a mixture of amusement and confusion. "Ace, you're officially cut off from that cold medicine. Care to let me in on which part of that nebulous "this" I'm supposed to be proving I can handle?" 

"So we don't know if we want to get engaged," Rory began, and before she could continue, Logan gave her a look of quick but raw pain that rendered her temporarily mute.

"_You _don't know if you want to get engaged," Logan reminded her, in a voice that was soft but firm and so utterly devoid of playfulness that she almost didn't recognize it as his own. "_I_ know. You're unsure, which I'm totally going to be patient about to the point where I'll even give you extra butter and syrup while you waffle, but don't say I don't know. I do."

"I'm just saying," Rory continued quietly, wondering whether her eyes were watering from the cold or some other cause, "that if we're going to be each other's "'til death do they part", there's going to be a whole lot of these nights before that death part inevitably rolls around."

"So you want me to stay home tonight so that we can work on each other's eulogies?" Logan guessed. He grinned at her, determinedly resuming his usual good cheer.

Rory shifted on the couch to look right at him. He met her gaze with eyes that alternated between brown and hazel-at the moment, they were some unnamed but intriguing shade in between-and didn't look away. "It's important, Logan, that we both realize _this _is what some of our days and nights up to and through senior citizenship will be like, staying in because one of us is too sick or busy or tired even after the usual 37 cups of coffee to go out. There won't always be cliffs to jump off, glamorous parties to go to, friends' birthdays to celebrate with a zillion drinks or new trendy restaurants to eat at, and I wouldn't even want there to be."

"Me, neither," Logan said. "The portions at those places tend to be way too small, and you wait interminably for a tiny table that..." He cut himself off before Rory could do it for him.

"I'm serious."

"You often are, Rory, and believe it or not, I love you for that."

She felt herself flushing in a way that couldn't be attributed to her fever. "I love you for _not _being so serious, AT LEAST NOT IN YOUR DEFAULT MODE, but how you know that when the situation calls for it…"

"-And it's calling right now," Logan finished. "The situation's calling for it, and my appropriate seriousness and I are answering on the first ring. Keep talking, Ace."

"The point is that this..." Rory swept that same arm through the air while Logan looked on with the same bemused grin "…has to be enough. For both of us. The quiet nights, the times when all we have for entertainment is each other, books, and whichever famewhores are currently embarrassing themselves on those MTV reality shows. The nights when one of us is too sick to be fun unless pouring our 12th artificially lime-flavored glass of electrolytes and picking up each other's used tissues is your idea of fun. It has to be enough. And if that's not enough, if you need someone who's always glamorous and 'on' and ready to party and who has a last name that your parents will approve of more than mine, then it'll hurt so badly that I almost can't breathe just thinking about it (or maybe I can't breathe partially because of this cold, but you know what I mean.) But either way, Logan, we have to know."

Logan walked over to her, knelt beside the couch and took her soft hand into his own, waving off her half-hearted warnings about germs and general grossness. "I want to spend those nights between now and 'til death do we part with you, Rory. I get that they mention that "in sickness and in health" part because we're not always going to look and feel our best, and maybe someday we'll even have to live less "richer" and more "poorer". Please believe me when I tell you that I'd rather stay home every night for the rest of my life pouring you as many liquid lime electrolytes as your poor bladder can handle than go out and have un-fun "fun" with anyone else in the world. I'm here for better _and _for worse, though my money would be on us having a whole lot more of the 'better.'"

"Logan…"

"Here, I can see you're in absolute desperate need of more Kleenex."

"It's your fault for making beautiful, romantic speeches about ARTIFICALLY FLAVORED electrolytes when I'm already congested," she said, sniffling into the new wad of tissues he handed over to her. She was dimly aware of how unattractive she must look, followed by the happy realization that she didn't care, and that Logan didn't, either.

"I'm sorry I even thought of going out to Finn's bash tonight. It's just you said I should go…"

"That'll teach you to take me at my actual word," Rory joked, giving him a sheepish smile. "Seriously, I want you to go. Really and truly. I'll punish myself with a ban on books, coffee and oxygen-not listed in order of importance, by the way- if I even start to get all passive-aggressive about it tomorrow. Whatever I was feeling weird about, the things you said were enough to de-weird me forever."

"Don't you dare de-weird," Logan warned. "I love you weird. Normal people are scarily boring. Speaking of which, I'll probably find tonight both scary _and_ boring, so I'm sure I'll be back in an hour or so-somewhere in between buying Finn the obligatory birthday shot and watching the ambulance cart him off to get his stomach pumped again."

"Stay out late," Rory urged. "Have the kind of fun you used to have before we were us. Notthe kind of fun that happens to involve a harem of bridesmaids, of course, but feel free to drink, eat and be monogamously merry 'til sunrise"

He cocked his head to the side and looked at her curiously. "What's with you suddenly wanting me to party like Nic Cage in the third act of Leaving Las Vegas?"

"Sometimes I just feel like I changed too much about who you are, and sooner or later, it'll feel like too much of a sacrifice, and you'll want to change back," Rory said. She hadn't realized how much she worried about that until she said it. Maybe they should mention somewhere on the warning label that extra strength cold medication could function as truth serum when ingested by someone suitably neurotic.

Logan smiled at her in a way that still made her heart turn lopsided cartwheels.

"You don't have magical transformative powers, Ace. I hate to break it to you, but we met at a time when I was ready to make some changes anyway. For the right person, that is. And you were that right person. _Are_ that right person. Always will be, even if…" he trailed off with an uncharacteristic uncertainty. "Always."

There was a pause while that last word lingered stubbornly in the air. _Always._

Logan stood and resumed his journey towards the door. "I'll be back soon, and with an extra few bottles of that lime green grossness in tow. And with the usual 17 pounds of junk food as well…why am I not remotely surprised that you're the one person whose appetite actually gets even huger when you're sick?"

"Logan, it's a real yes," Rory blurted out.

He paused at the door to grin at her. "Yeah, that's been firmly established. You really do want me to go have the promised birthday drink with Finn; you really won't mind that I took a quick break from my Florence Nightingale duties; you really-"

"Want to marry you!" Rory shouted. She started laughing and crying at the same time, and then punctuated the most important declaration of her life with a violent sneeze. "It's a yes. A _real _yes. Yes, I will be your wife. Yes, I want to spend the rest of our lives together. Yes, we will be writing our own vows for the wedding, because your speech before reminded me that the traditional ones are kind of generic and antiquated."

"I'm liking this yes thing," Logan said, a hoarseness in his voice that even Rory's clogged ears couple pick up on. "Mind if I play along? Yes, you just made me the happiest man alive. Yes, I will love you for life and longer. Yes, I'm more anxious about your family's reaction than mine…it's a real yes?"

She kissed him, really and truly and completely, by way of response.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"If you're uncomfortable with the truth, then next time you've gotta pick the 'dare' part of our infamous Truth or Dare games, Ace." He gave her an affectionate look so fleeting that Rory didn't even notice his eyes straying from the road. "It's one or the other. The rules are very clear on that point, and I know my fiancé is a rule respecter of the highest order."

"And still very unused to hearing herself referred to as a 'fiance'," Rory noted, as much to herself as to him.

Logan glanced at her again, this time long enough for her to notice. "But fiancé is a word you still _want_ to get used to hearing, right?"

Rory squeezed his arm, and risked choking on her seatbelt to rest her head against his shoulder. He lifted one hand off the steering wheel to stroke her hair, which he'd once commented could play the lead role on one of those "you won't _believe _these miraculous results!" shampoo commercials. Uncommonly beautiful hair that Rory wasn't vain enough to focus on or even take much notice of, but which he suddenly realized he'd get to look at and touch for the rest of their lives, even when age turned it from chestnut to an equally stunning grey and long after his own hair had likely bid an amicable farewell to his scalp.

"'Fiance' is already threatening to usurp words like ''coffee' and 'dessert buffet' and 'impossibly geeky electronic organizer' as my favorite word ever uttered," she assured him, beaming into his shoulder bone.

"Speaking of organizers, you still haven't given the long-awaited 'truth'," he reminded her. "And don't make me give you the dare instead, because I'm pretty sure it's illegal in at least 39 states."

Rory grinned. "Fine, the truth is forthcoming. But no mocking, okay?"

"Rory, I've already changed and matured to be fiancé-worthy, and happily so, but…no mocking? There is only so much discipline one semi-reformed hedonist can be expected to muster."

Rory made a half-hearted attempt to look miffed, but was far too elated to pull it off convincingly. "Okay, then…the answer is 17."

Logan burst out laughing, that spontaneous, life-loving laugh that always proved infectious. "Once again, Ace, you've surpassed even my loftiest expectations. You've hammered out 17 separate wedding-related To Do lists since last night? How is that even-"

The sudden ringing of Rory's cell phone cut him off mid-mock.

"You're not here!" shouted an all too distinctive voice, threatening to rupture both her calm and her eardrum.

"Thanks for the heads up, Paris. I'd started to suspect we weren't currently occupying the same space, and now that you've confirmed it-"

Rory could hear her favorite frenemy take a deep breath on the other end of the phone. "Rory, I have news."

Rory's tone immediately shifted from the reflexive sarcasm that she and Paris tended to bring out in each other to the deep concern that was there even when neither liked to acknowledge it. "Is everything okay?"

"I need to talk in person," Paris informed her. As usual, she spoke at a strangely loud volume, and with the instinctive, insecurity-fueled defensiveness that managed to alienate the vast majority people she encountered. "Why else would I be here in Hicks-ville stalking you? It's not like I'm in the market for a shiny new silo or aspiring to film my own Capra-meets-Salvadore-Dali cinematic masterpiece."

"She sounds particularly Paris-y today," Logan whispered happily. He'd grown moderately fond of her during their time at Yale, as both a person and a source of endless entertainment.

"Paris, if you could maybe just tell me over the phone whatever it is that's -"

"Excuse me for wanting the benefit of a quality conversation with you, uninterrupted by Nigerian princes calling on the other line to offer to march you down the nearest aisle as soon as you give them your bank account number!"

Rory held the phone away from her ear and smiled at Logan, making a mental note to tease him about why he hadn't thought to swindle her out of the whopping $59.17 in her savings account before proposing.

"-and I like seeing those strange but enlightening facial expressions you always make in that instant right after someone first tells you something, but before you then force yourself to say something annoyingly tactful and polite. Are you and Richie Rich heading home to see Lorelai?"

"Well, yes, but it's an important visit," Rory explained patiently, "because I actually have news, too-"

"Why does our friendship never matter anywhere near as much to you as it does to me, Rory?"

"Aaaaand it's officially Chernobyl time," Logan whispered gleefully.

"You're my best and, by some depressingly stringent definitions, _only _friend, unless you count the life coach who was paid to pretend he tolerates me, and my nanny, who for some mysterious reason moved several states away- "

"Your friendship is high on my list of things that matter," Rory told her, already feeling guiltier than she knew she should. "You know that by now. It's just that-"

"Great, then I'll meet you at that dive with the killer salt-n-pepper fries. "Killer" meaning both deliciously decadent and unhealthy enough to kill us off-and why are those two properties so frequently correlated? Anyway, rest assured that I won't keep you from the usual freakishly codependent bonding with your mom for too long. Oh, and Rory? Thanks."

Rory sighed and leaned even more heavily against Logan, who nobly ignored the damage to his rib cage. Conversations with Paris could be utterly stimulating and just as utterly exhausting, and this one had been the latter. "Do you think Paris is alright?" he asked. "As alright as she ever can be, that is?"

Logan smoothly maneuvered his way into a parking space just a block away from Luke's, both of them resigned to the fact that Paris might already be there waiting to accost them. It looked like finding her mom to announce their engagement would have to wait until they made sure Paris was okay, and then helpfully shot her with a tranquilizer gun.

"I'm sure your mom will appreciate the extra time to whip up that Molotov Cocktail she'll want to 'toast' me with," Logan joked, taking her hand and taking in the colorful chaos around him with a smile. Stars Hollow had only a fraction of the affluence that his own hometown had, and roughly a zillion times more character and charm.

Just a few feet away from Luke's, Logan froze in his casual designer loafers, and the smile on his face morphed into something far harder to define. Rory had been gazing happily up at him, enjoying his enjoyment of her town too much to focus on what was going on around them. "What's wrong?" she asked worriedly. "Oh, I know, if you've never heard Miss Patty and Babette sing about all the men they've been with to the tune of We Didn't Start The Fire, the lyrics and the random "ooooh ooooh ooooh-ing" can be really horrifying at first, but eventually you-"

Rory followed his gaze and fell mute, squeezing his hand as hard as she could. Logan squeezed back.

"Unless Paris has morphed into a dark-haired male with a hair gel addiction even worse than mine, I don't think that's her, Rory. It's…"

"…Jess."

_To Be Continued…._


	3. Chapter 3

**NOTE: To all the people who have read and "favorited" (let's pretend that's a verb, shall we?!) my story, please know how incredibly appreciative I am. I realize that this chapter is ridiculously long, so thanks in advance for hanging in there! The fourth and final chapter should be written within the next month or so. Thanks again for confirming that Gilmore Girls fans are the most wonderful people on the entire planet :) **

**Chapter 3**

Stars Hollow was an unusual place renowned for both attracting and creating unusual people. The fact that Rory Gilmore and her mother had been among the comparatively saner residents of this New England hamlet spoke volumes about a town in which a proud lack of normalcy was, in fact, the norm. Despite not residing there full time for several years (five years, nine months and one week, Rory felt compelled to note-her mind was the type which retained and occasionally obsessed over details far less significant than that one), she still thought of it as home.

Rory had already, of course, made several plans for this visit. These ranged from treating Logan to the town's legendarily creepy museum, which now required that one sign several waivers before entering, to announcing to her mother and Lane the most vital decision of her entire life. She had assured her new fiancé that these events were not necessarily listed in order of importance. Now, however, she found herself staring at Jess through the windshield of Logan's cherry red Toyota, a recent purchase which reflected a pragmatism and financial restraint that many, including Logan himself, had once doubted he would ever possess. Jess stared back with an expression she couldn't quite interpret and probably didn't want to. She shifted her gaze to Logan, whose currently troubled countenance she could, unfortunately, read all too well, touched his cheek and thought wistfully of those aforementioned plans. She had learned from painful firsthand experience that Jess Mariano was a plan-derailer of the highest order.

"I'm so sorry, Logan."

"For what matters totally beyond your control are you apologizing this time?" Logan covered her hand with his own. "Haven't we already covered that Jersey Shore's renewal wasn't solely your fault?"

Logan talked and joked more-though not necessarily better-when he got nervous. This was one of a rather alarming number of traits that Rory had long ago realized he shared with her mother, though Rory doubted either of them would appreciate her pointing that out.

"For anything and everything that might be said or done to annoy you to any degree over the next 72 hours," she said worriedly.

"Ah, the base-covering preemptive apology-as amusing as it is ineffective," Logan declared, but he squeezed the hand he still held and had started to revert back to the natural life-embracing cheer that Rory still found as impressive as it was baffling. "Are you ready to greet your leather-clad, perpetually-brooding-even-before-vampire-movies-made-it-cool ex with the polite, vaguely indifferent courtesy that's probably more than he deserves but less than he'll give in return?"

This was one of the more flattering ways that Jess and Logan had described each other. "Let's build up gradually to the news of our engagement, okay? At least until we have the chance to search him for firearms."

On that inspiring note, they left the safety of Logan's car to face the unpredictability of the outside world. Logan forced himself to muster a pleasant smile. Jess didn't bother to return it. This was a key distinction between the only two men Rory had ever been in love with, albeit at different times in her life and in what even the sometimes emotionally clueless Rory had come to realize were very different ways.

"We're engaged!" Rory burst out. "Gradual buildups" were among the many things in life that Rory had found far easier in theory than execution. "I'm sorry. Well, not sorry that we're engaged, but sorry if you're hurt in any way or feel…"

"I like this apology even less than the one you gave in the car," Logan murmured.

If Jess had a reaction to this news or the manner in which it was delivered, he prevented his facial expression from revealing it. They all stood there for a moment that felt longer than it actually was, the silence seeming more voluble than words.

"What are you doing here?" Rory asked finally. This wasn't how compulsively polite, people-pleasing Rory generally greeted friends, acquaintances or even strangers. Jess, though, had always been the unsettling, leather-clad exception to her usual rules. They had a complicated past, and over the past several years he had occasionally materialized just long enough to complicate her present.

"Myriad reasons," Jess replied. There was a pause during which Logan and Rory waited for an explanation that Jess declined to offer. Logan, who was far more comfortable with ambiguity and unanswered questions than his fiancé, or at least knew how to pretend he was, strolled casually towards Luke's Diner.

"It can't be for the Hawaiian Hoedown," Rory said rather accusingly, taking in the leis and pineapple-shaped lanterns and the middle-aged men earnestly attempting to hula dance by the gazebo. "You hate the festivals we have here. You hate here in general." Jess had never valued courtesy, and nor did he tend to inspire it in others.

"Not everything here," Jess said slowly. He still had the throaty voice of a smoker despite quitting when he was just 18 years old. "There have always been a couple of things-and people-that keep me coming back, though maybe not always the things and people you think…"

"I hope salt-n-pepper cheese fries go well with palpable awkwardness," Logan remarked cheerfully, noticing that Jess had followed them inside.

Rory cast an affectionate look around the cozy restaurant where so many of her most memorable childhood experiences had taken place and such obscene amounts of junk food and caffeine had been consumed. It took a moment to register that the titular Luke, owner of the diner and the man who had singlehandedly rescued her and her culinary-challenged mother from starvation, among other dire fates, was conspicuously absent.

"Where's your uncle?" she demanded of Jess, as if he had somehow managed to stuff the large, blustering Luke into one of his own pantries and hidden him from view. "He's always here at this time of day…at pretty much _every _time of day."

"I don't know," Jess replied, and Rory was surprised to note how quickly and instinctively she believed him. Jess had never been a liar-if anything, he had an irksome tendency to tell truths that were better left unsaid.

"Luke's not here," offered Cesar, Luke's most valuable (and sole) assistant chef. People always shamelessly eavesdropped on one another's conversations in Stars Hollow and chimed in whenever the mood happened to strike.

"Yeah, we kind of already deduced that one on our own." This was, of course, from Jess.

"I don't know exactly where he is or why he's there instead of here, but I'm sure someone will figure it out and report back to us," Cesar replied, and hurried off to serve a a triple bacon cheeseburger to a 96-year-old woman in a gigantic Hawaiian shirt.

"So did you read the Hunger Games trilogy?" Jess asked. "I know they say it's for pre-teen girls, but I'm all about the awesomely bleak, dystopic view of society."

"Shocker," mumbled Logan.

"I adored those books," Rory admitted reluctantly. "But moving back from fiction to reality: Why-"

"'-are you here?" Paris Gellar finished, rushing into the diner. Paris was always rushing, even when she had nowhere in particular to go. She then waved off Jess's reply before he could formulate one. Rory and Logan exchanged knowing grins: prickly but sneakily vulnerable Paris often fired off questions to which she did not actually want answers.

Paris nodded regally at Logan, gave Rory a brief but surprisingly tight hug, and dragged her dearest-and, by some depressingly stringent definitions, _only-_friend to the nearest available table. Heads swiveled to get a better view. Paris Gellar had often been described as a "presence" even by those most desirous of her absence. She wasn't in possession of traditional beauty, but she had a compelling and highly expressive face that one couldn't help looking at-which, Rory reflected dryly, went quite nicely with the booming voice that one couldn't help but listen to.

"If it's okay with my fiancé…" Logan couldn't help drawing out this word out a tad longer than strictly necessary… "I'll leave her to catch up with you guys. I want to take a walk around the town and maybe try one of those coconut mai tais they seem to be serving outside." Rory leapt up to kiss him and to issue another reflexive apology that no longer felt quite as preemptive.

"Based on the few memories of Logan that I wasn't successful in repressing, I'm betting he knocks back at least six or seven of those mai tais," Jess commented. "And then, what, skydives merrily off the nearest cliff again just to see if his family's money finally bought him that invincibility shield he'd had his eye on…"

"Logan's changed," Rory informed him.

"You think people ever truly do that-as opposed to just _wanting_ to?" Jess asked curiously.

"Logan _is _a little less arrogant," Paris chimed in loyally. "I mean, still a risk taker, still the kind of guy who you can't help but worry deep down will one day cope with stress or loss by acting like someone who's 15 years younger and with half of his actual IQ, but-"

Rory smiled at her perennially tact-challenged friend's attempts to help and turned back to Jess. "Given that you've grown since your own rebel without a clue days, I'm surprised that you can't imagine others doing the same. It's true that people don't radically transform, but…" she trailed off, thinking of how life's various twists and his own surprisingly strong will to change had combined to mature Logan since the day they first crossed paths. And how many other facets of both their characters, both beautiful and decidedly otherwise, would always remain firmly intact. "Hopefully we all figure out how to become better versions of the people we're stuck being and choose to be around people who bring out that better self. Like Katniss opting to be with Peeta over Gale, you know what I mean?"

"I can't imagine that anyone ever fully knows what you mean, including you," Jess said, but he wore something suspiciously similar to a smile. "The question here is whether I should be insulted or flattered at the notion that I was your Gale. On one hand, the guy turned out to be kind of bloodthirsty and morally bankrupt, and, far more egregiously, not the type of guy to read for fun. On the other, I'm secure enough in my masculinity to note that Liam Hemsworth is a preternaturally handsome and sexy guy."

"Well, you _are _both pretty dark, externally and otherwise," Paris mused. "Of course, you're not responsible for nearly as many people's deaths…yet."

Paris' flattering assessment and the salty fried food seemed to boost the general mood. The three found themselves conversing with unexpected ease about the books they loved, the TV shows they deemed sublimely mock-worthy, and the jobs that they hadn't expected to ever hold but were enjoying to a surprising degree. Jess was working for an independent publishing house, writing and editing unapologetically offbeat articles and novels that only a loyal few would ever read. The poor man couldn't even speak about the prospect of working for a more "mainstream" publishing house without choking on a fry. Paris, concluding before even earning her medical degree that she had little interest in the actual practice of medicine, had found a prestigious medical research laboratory that valued her skills and tireless work ethic enough to overlook the fact that she wasn't exactly the "team player" they had sought. When two different colleagues requested extended mental health leaves within just two weeks of Paris's arrival, her bosses had helpfully moved her to an isolated corner she could call her own. "It's so perfect for me," Paris reflected, sounding as close to Pollyanna-esque as she was constitutionally capable. "I get to work for the betterment of humankind without actually having to interact with humans!"

"I give you maybe a year before you singlehandedly devise the cure for some gruesome disease most of us didn't even know existed," Jess predicted loyally, and Rory nodded along in enthusiastic agreement while Paris treated him to one of rare but room brightening smiles.

"Well, maybe closer to a year and a half," she said modestly.

Rory made a slightly nervous joke, the type that contained more truth than actual humor, about how she was the least impressive person at their table-and would be even if the Stars Hollow resident who had made news last week for trying to eat his own foot were to join them.

"Don't put yourself down," urged Paris. "There are enough people out there in the world to do that for you. Believe me, I know. You guys wouldn't believe this, but for some reason a lot of the non-you people I meet seem not to like me."

Jess and Rory carefully avoided each other's gaze.

"Anyway, Rory, you opted to spend your life making tiny, practically-need-a-microscope-to-see-them differences to a very select few over pursuing the grand ambitions that defined you through most of your life. That's totally admirable in a certain way, even though-"

Rory broke in hastily before Paris could continue showing her special brand of support. "I'm teaching English to a bunch of high school freshmen who generally dread being there," she explained to Jess. "And I love it. Sometimes I feel like I _shouldn't_, like I should want to keep trying to be an investigative journalist because that's who I always dreamed I'd be, but it's not who I really am, you know?"

"I do," Jess said quietly, and Rory recalled at that moment with a force that surprised her exactly how Jess had once gotten her, or at least the 'her' she was back then. Almost, though not quite, as well as Logan got the woman she was now. And, really, that's what most of us want, Rory reflected: to be truly gotten, and for the getters in question to keep on liking us no matter what they might see. "Seriously, Rory, I could see you feeling compelled to apologize politely after asking every question."

Paris and Jess ordered another plate of fried delights, bickered animatedly over whether the cheese fries were in fact superior to the diner's new BBQ flavored onion rings, and asked what Lorelai thought of her daughter giving up on her lifelong dream of becoming an international correspondent. Like their clothes and CDs and countless tubs of triple chocolate chip ice cream, the Gilmores' dreams had always been shared. "I'm sure she knows this is more who I really am," Rory said, with just a touch more confidence than she actually felt. Over the past few months, she hadn't actually spoken to her mom with their usual freakish frequency. They were never at a loss for things to say, but after every call and email Rory had had been unable to shake the nagging sense that there were more important words her normally hyper-loquacious mother, who at just 16 years her senior also doubled as her closest friend even during times when it might have been ill-advised to do so, had opted to leave unexpressed.

Rory glanced at her watch, eager to track down said gene-sharing best friend and retrieve Logan from the clutches of whichever Stars Hollow citizens had elected themselves his impromptu tour guides.

"So before Paris tells me her news, I just wanted to finish talking about the engagement that I haven't even confided to Facebook or my journal," she burst out, as if they had even fully _started _talking about it. It was funny, in a not especially humorous way, how being around Jess brought out the less secure adolescent self that she had been in their relationship. Frankly, it wasn't an incarnation of herself with whom she was eager to become reacquainted.

"I've always dated guys with strong personalities-"

"Dean had a personality?" Paris asked curiously. Jess beamed his approval.

"Okay, well, so he was my rule-proving exception," Rory amended. "Anyway, so you know I wanted to be single for a while, just to figure out more about who I was outside of a relationship before jumping back into one-"

"Which is when you figured out just how egregiously you suck as a journalist," Paris reminded them helpfully.

And I know," Rory continued, with the deliberate patience that being in Paris' presence forced one to summon, "that during some of that time Jess and I were talking again-just as friends, of course, but as the kind of friends who know without saying so that they could all too easily become either more or less than friends at any time. And I'm sorry if I led you on or made you—or myself, for that matter-think that I was really over Logan, because I finally realized he's just not 'getting overable', at least not for me."

"And I'm eminently easy to get over?" Jess asked, but Rory was relieved to see that it was a teasing rhetorical question that invited no real response. In fact, he and Paris both appeared to be stifling peals of laughter and becoming less adept at doing so with every passing second.

"I know, I know," Rory said regretfully. "Trust me when I tell you that I'm not this hopelessly inarticulate when extolling the virtues of a novel written a couple of centuries ago to a classroom full of hormone-addled teens. It's sharing the autobiographical stuff with people I actually know outside of an academic setting that tends to elicit the stammering sentence fragments. But you get the gist, right? I'd never want to hurt you, Jess. We've already done enough of that."

"We're not laughing at you," Jess assured her. "Well, we _are, _but not for the reasons you probably think."

"I'm supposed to find that comforting, right?" Rory said hopefully.

"This is what I wanted to talk to you about today," Paris said. "Well, not how you ramble incoherently when you get nervous, but about Jess."

"You…wanted to talk to me about my no-longer-a-relationship relationship with Jess? Isn't that chat at least a handful of years too late?" Rory felt her mouth pull down into a confused frown as she reached for an onion ring that was no longer there. She wished, and not for the first time, that she could convert some of her academic acumen to the social and emotional awareness in which she had always been just a tad lacking.

"No, Rory, about _my _relationship with Jess. Which we've had for just about five months now."

Perhaps more than a tad lacking.

"It'll be exactly five months the day after tomorrow," Jess said, "but it feels like it's been approximately…forever." He and Paris exchanged a smile that had Rory blushing and developing a sudden fascination with the floor of Luke's. Fortunately, Luke always kept said floor reassuringly clean.

"Are you upset?" Paris asked. Her voice cracked ever so slightly on the last syllable, a reminder to both of just how fiercely she valued Rory's friendship despite the fact that she would probably never be able to say so.

"I'm not," Rory replied, and it was only after the words left her mouth that she knew they were true. In fact, the idea of these two unhappiness-prone people she cared about finding happiness with each other suddenly made a bizarre sort of sense. "I'm surprised, but maybe I should actually just be surprised that I'm surprised, since people less oblivious than I am could so easily see it. And even today, the looks and the fact that you both seem so much nicer to each other than you are to pretty much any other human being…"

"So you approve." Jess tore his eyes away from Paris long enough to look at her.

Rory tried to channel her fiance's preternatural ability to say the perfect thing at the perfect time, coming up with just the right compliments to suit the given announcement and specific people involved. "Of course. You're both so smart and interesting-granted, everyone _thinks _they're smart and interesting, but most people aren't either-and you're both so similarly misanthropic in such funny and endearing ways! And you're both…brave."

"Because we have to wake up and be us every single day?" guessed Paris.

"Because you've both been hurt and disappointed and have a friend who's as chronically oblivious as I am, and yet you're letting yourselves care and try anyway. Which totally calls for another celebratory snack, does it not?"

Okay, so perhaps Logan was still better at dispensing warmth and flattery than she was, but Rory had managed to convey to them-and herself-that she supported the relationship. She found herself hoping that her mother would be sending the same message-and no doubt offering even more deliciously decadent food-when she informed her that she was going to be Logan's "for better or for worse" until death did they part. And, while the mostly nonreligious but increasingly spiritually curious Logan and Rory were still grappling with their views of the afterlife, they had already determined that they little intention of parting even then. She thought of her mother's recent reserve and felt an anxious knot forming in her stomach that she told herself was not a premonition of doom-merely the expected aftereffects of consuming three plates of Luke's fries.

While Rory was a fundamentally introverted person who nonetheless had a powerful need to connect closely and frequently with her few (granted, _very_ few) loved ones, Logan was an outgoing extrovert who thrived in social situations but had a surprisingly strong need for solitude. When the majority of your family members and obligatory childhood friends are fairly horrible human beings, you develop a special appreciation for the joys of spending time alone. So it was with a genuine smile that Logan strolled alone through the center of Stars Hollow. He took in the self-appointed town troubadours strumming guitars and the residents who sang along with them in voices as loud as they were off key, the sidewalks and store windows that still bore the evidence of a recent town finger painting contest, and the fact that most people greeted him despite having no idea who he was. In the oppressive upper class suburb where Logan had been raised with lofty expectations and minimal affection, interest in one's neighbors was expressed only when a familiar name popped up in an expose on insider training.

As he wandered past the building that Rory had pointed out as Miss Patty's dance studio, a man of indeterminate age appeared directly in front of him. He cocked his head and appraised Logan thoughtfully. "Studies show that blond males tend not to age well," he greeted. "I'd advise you to develop a strong intellect and likable personality to rely on when you can no longer get by on your looks. I'm fortunate in that way-I'm not blond and never had good looks to rely on in the first place."

"You must be Kirk," Logan deduced. "Rory's mentioned you." Logan was too well mannered to repeat exactly what Rory had said. If his memory served him correctly-and, for better or for worse, it usually did-she had described Kirk as the oddest man ever to live, albeit one of the inherently kindest as well.

"I can't remember how I know you. Did we work together? I've had 16 different jobs in the past year, so it can get a little hard to keep track…oh! Were you part of that mandatory social skills group that my fiancé made me attend?"

Logan explained that they had probably crossed paths at or near the Hay Bale Maze when he was last in Stars Hollow.

"That was my next guess! I'm impressed that you correctly identified it as a maze." Kirk's eagerly dispensed approval had apparently already been won. "You'd be surprised by how many people here confuse mazes with labyrinths-and how few of them appreciate being corrected on that point. As I tried to tell them at the time, a labyrinth is a maze without branches-without _choices_. With mazes, you can pick your paths and control your own destiny. I prefer mazes, don't you? My mother is a very labyrinth-loving type of woman…"

"So is mine," Logan said thoughtfully. He realized with a faint pang of guilt that in the not very distant past, he might have blithely, arrogantly assumed he'd have nothing in common with someone like Kirk-and probably wouldn't have talked to him long enough to verify it. "But rest assured that I, too, am definitely more of a maze guy."

"You might really like-ME," said Kirk.

"I do like you," Logan said kindly, privately wondering whether it was too late for Kirk to demand a refund from that fiancé-mandated social skills group.

"He means," another voice said. "that you might like ME. It stands for Mystery Elucidators, a place devoted to shedding light on any and all mysteries. It's our newest enterprise here in Stars Hollow and one that we hope will last a bit longer than most of our others…and start attracting less attention from Connecticut law enforcement." This voice belonged to a man introduced to Logan as Archie Skinner, the town's most popular and only remaining reverend. In the presence of clergy, Logan found himself feeling instinctively guilty over absolutely everything and nothing in particular.

"That's why we're not calling ourselves Mystery _Solvers,_" Kirk explained. "Some people think it's a philosophical comment on how none of life's mysteries can ever truly and fully be solved, but really it's because the name made people think we were real PIs and detectives and all sorts of things that Taylor and various angry lawyers have reminded us we're not licensed to serve as. We _are_ a pretty formidable team of volunteers-hoping-to-become-paid-employees who try to get to the bottom of any and all mysteries that are brought to us, though-or will once people start bringing them. Everything from inexplicably disappearing friends-you wouldn't believe how many of those I've had-to crimes that people don't want to report to things that probably _should _be crimes but aren't…"

"I actually think it sounds like an awesome idea," Logan said, feeling far more genuinely enthusiastic about it than he had expected to. "I'll bet it becomes a huge success. I mean, think of how many people have unsolved dilemmas that may not qualify as police-worthy or nagging questions they want answered but might not want to bother a trained professional with for whatever combination of reasons…" Logan resisted the temptation to take out his Ideas notebook, in part because he didn't particularly want to explain what it was or why he had it.

"You'd be surprised," said the reverend thoughtfully, "just how many people _think _they want to find out the truth about things when in reality most of us are far happier with our happiness-preserving delusions. That will be a tricky aspect of our work…if we ever actually get any work. And I'll charitably assume that "bet" you mentioned was metaphorical rather than literal given that gambling is a sin?"

Rory sometimes described Logan as a man of infinite smiles. The one he wore now was of an uncharacteristically nervous variety. "Ah, yes, well, of course-I don't sin-well, at least not nearly as much as I used to, and not the truly bad ones, though I guess we all just tell ourselves the sins _we _commit aren't the truly bad ones-"

Archie Skinner mercifully cut Logan off with a hearty bout of laughter and beckoned his closest friend, Stars Hollow's rabbi, over to enjoy the joke. "David, did you remember to ask God to forgive us for betting on how long Taylor's toupee would remain on his head before crawling off to return to the forest?"

"I did, but I think God was laughing too hard to offer a coherent reply. He _did _take the opportunity to remind me he's still pretty against mass homicide, though. Our supreme deity is kind of high maintenance that way."

Kirk continued to proudly show Logan around ME, which consisted primarily of exuberant crayon covered signs to indicate the separate departments of an organization that didn't quite yet exist anywhere other than in the active imaginations of its citizens.

Miss Patty, a woman of robust physique and even larger personality, greeted Logan with a vibrant smile and an appraising look that he couldn't quite interpret. "I'll be in charge of all mysteries of the heart, of course. 'Why did so-and-so _really _break up with me and is there any chance of rectifying that? How _exactly _do I make sex with my spouse more satisfying again-_"_

"Of course," Logan agreed, taking just a tiny step backwards and suddenly feeling quite anxious to be reunited with his fiancé. "Speaking of Rory," he said aloud, conveniently ignoring the fact that they hadn't been, "does her mom have role in this venture of yours?"

Logan thought Miss Patty's smile might have dimmed, but couldn't be quite sure. "Lorelai hasn't really been involved with the town lately or talkative about the reasons why…or talkative about _anything_, in fact. Has she warmed up to you yet, by the way? I tried to tell her that semi-reformed rogues always make the very best husbands and son-in-laws, and I've had enough of both to know…"

Logan had always been under the impression that Lorelai loved affectionately mocking the town she had chosen to make her home while earnestly participating in every aspect of it, but he had only a second to register that remaining detached-and, for that matter, silent for even a few minutes at a time for any reason whatsoever-seemed out of character from what he knew of his effervescent future mother-in-law firsthand (a minimal amount) and from Rory (enough to fill a few Tolstoy-length novels). Before he had settled on either asking a diplomatically crafted follow up question or just keeping his mouth shut-this latter possibility was the less likely one-Rory entered the increasingly crowded dance studio. He watched with an unashamedly goofy smile as she made her way towards him, with the awkward gait befitting a dreamy brainiac who spent more time inside her own head than paying attention to her surroundings-and someone so naturally lacking in athleticism and physical grace that they had a running joke about how many consecutive days she could maneuver her way around without tripping. She had never made it for longer than five. He'd be around forever to celebrate with her if she ever broke that record, he realized now, and to help pick her up off the ground until she managed to do so.

"Welcome to…ME."

"I-wait, what? If I were the kind of cringe-inducingly lame woman who let myself miss my boyfriend after just an hour or so of separation, I'd have missed you this past hour or so. Oh, who am I kidding-it was exactly 73 minutes." She filled him in on the new-at least new to _her-_relationship between Paris and Jess.

"I could actually see them as each other's ' the one', if only because they'd both prove so terrifying to pretty much every other earthling they'd cross paths with," Logan replied. Pre-Rory, he had believed himself incapable-and in some odd way unworthy of-a loving, committed relationship. Now, much to the chagrin of a few prep school friends he still had from childhood who he wouldn't especially like if they first met as adults, he had become a rather zealous believer in the power of love to make people happier and just generally better. Even if in this instance the two people were not exactly his biggest fans. "Well, either that or them totally killing each other off and ending up the subject of a Lifetime Movie of the Week, but either way it should be a fun adventure for them. I'm totally writing a comedy horror screenplay based on who and whatever those two spawn," Logan replied.

"It would be brilliantly grotesque," Rory said loyally. "It can be like a Tim Burton or David Lynch movie, only maybe with a semi-coherent narrative. Put it in the Ideas book!" Logan, who still hadn't quite found his dream job after rebelling from the distinctly nightmarish future his media mogul father had carefully outlined for him since his Pampers days, had taken notes on hundreds of inspiring possibilities. They key was figuring out which one to make his reality. He took out the aforementioned book and found himself jotting a couple of notes about ME instead.

"Why am I not surprised that you'd find a way to make my relationship all about _you_?" Paris asked. Her hearing was, alas, as scarily sharp as the rest of her.

"Congratulations!" Logan replied cheerily, and the corners of Paris' mouth turned upward.

They turned to watch as Jess helped Andrew, the high strung owner of Stars Hollow's cleverly named Stars Hollow Book Store, lug in a few boxes of books.

"There are a few self-help ones here mixed in with the true crime, cozy mysteries and How to Convincingly Pretend to be PIs for Dummies in case you want to take a look," Andrew offered Jess, once he had stopped fretting about the placement and handling of his precious cargo. "I remember that one time you and Luke got a couple of self-help books on-"

"You must be mixing me up with someone who'd actually be pathetic enough to read that stuff," Jess replied hastily. Logan, Rory and Paris all exchanged amused smiles. "So, anyway, is this one of those instances where we should try to squash these people's misguided enthusiasm for their own good before they waste any more time and effort and possibly set themselves up for a few broken limbs along the way? I mean, not that I'm an expert like our perky, irritatingly sunny Richie Rich over here, but-"

"That is probably the nicest way you've ever described me," Logan declared. Sadly, this was true. He beamed as widely as possible, which is what he did when he wanted to prove to himself and the outside world that he hadn't allowed himself to be hurt. And when he wanted to annoy certain people as much as possible.

Paris gave Rory's arm an excited little squeeze. "Our double dates are going to be so epic. Do you need to borrow any extra Kevlar?"

"Anyway, the point is that these so-called real life mysteries are meant to be solved either by professionals or, if they're not crimes, no one at all," Jess continued. "This private investigation-"

"Mystery Elucidation," corrected three bystanders in unison.

"-results in prying open old wounds that were meant to close naturally on their own, not to mention probably getting sued and shot a few times along the way…"

"Well, it's a good thing y_ou're_ not marketing ME," Taylor Doose said, striding by with a disapproving toss of his toupee-crowned head. "Granted, no one is…but we'd rather leave the marketing of this wonderful new place to no one than to someone who refuses to believe in something just because he hasn't witnessed its effectiveness yet!"

"You clearly forgot Stars' Hollow centuries-long mission to run the rational out of town," Paris told her boyfriend.

"Am I crazy for thinking this idea is sort of awesome?" Logan asked. He was neither surprised nor deterred by the adamant chorus of "yes, you are" that followed.

Rory, meanwhile, found herself in the midst of an epiphany. _This_ was why she had ended up with Logan over Jess, even when at times in their lives both men made that a trickier decision than expected. Logan could snark with gleeful acumen, but he saw ME as an opportunity, brimming with potential and possibilities, while relentlessly realistic Jess saw it as a grim waste of energy and possibly another point in favor of forced sterilization. Logan had emptied a lot of glasses in his time, but somehow he still always viewed them as half full. She understood Jess's amusingly antisocial, protective cynicism; it was, in fact, a part of him that the emotionally guarded Rory had always related to more than she'd like to admit. But sometimes it's better to be with the person who makes you look at life not as you already do, but as you want to. Logan approached life with a healthy amount of wry amusement, but also indefatigable enthusiasm and unshakable hope.

"I love that you love this flimsy and poorly planned idea," Rory burst out suddenly, and kissed Logan with a passion that elicited cheers from the town's onlookers.

"Don't let that inflate your ego back to an XXXL," Paris warned Logan. "These are the type of people who will cheer for pretty much _anything_."

"I have no idea what I did to deserve that, but you know how big a fan I am of Random Rory," Logan whispered happily. "And all incarnations of Rory, in fact. Granted, Caffeine-Deprived Rory is not exactly my all-time favorite. Oh, and-"

"Sometimes I just get this wave of lovesickness based more on what I happen to be thinking than what you're actually doing," Rory explained. "It balances out that time I was furious at you all morning because I had a dream that you took some imaginary woman to a Radiohead concert even though I know you totally prefer infectiously cheesy pop and 80s power ballads in reality."

"Pop music? Seriously? It figures," Jess said, shaking his dark head from side to side.

"Don't forget to invite us all to the wedding!" shouted someone who Rory had never seen before.

"I can be the photographer." This was from someone she most definitely _did _recognize: Kirk. "Or the caterer. Or the florist. I've had jobs in all of those fields, as you know, though, admittedly, only for a week or so at a time…"

"I adore these people," Rory whispered to Logan, looking around the studio fondly. She rested her head in the perfect space somewhere in between his neck and shoulder. "I mean, granted, most of them annoy me beyond the telling of it in large or even medium doses, but I love and miss them anyway. They're home, you know?"

"I know."

"It's just weird that so many non-Mom people already know about our engagement…"

"So let's go track her down and rectify that," Logan said.

They said their goodbyes to the Stars Hollow denizens, who responded with warm and vaguely ominous reminders that their paths were sure to cross again during Rory and Logan's visit. Several more times, in fact.

They headed for Paris and Jess's cars. Rory and Paris launched into an animated discussion of geopolitics that delayed their departure, leaving Logan and Jess looking at each other with a mixture of mutual affection for the women in question and wariness of one another.

"So Rory was trying desperately to let me down easy today," Jess said finally.

"That sounds like her."

"And then got totally flustered and rambling when she realized my hopes for us hadn't been up for quite a while now and hence didn't have to be gently deflated in the first place."

Logan grinned. "That sounds like her, too."

"And it occurred to me while I was thinking about it-because, unlike you, I'm the pensive, philosophical type rather than, say, a shallow-"

"Do go on," Logan urged cheerfully.

Jess fidgeted with one of many zippers hanging from his leather jacket. "It's just that even if I were single now, even if she and I and whoever else had made a whole bunch of different choices along the way and ended up in different places-literally and metaphorically-than we are now, I think the end result would still be the same. She loves you. She wants to spend the rest of her life with you. I will never understand that woman's taste in men."

"You know, I was just thinking the _exact _same thing," Logan said. The two men exchanged their first real smiles.

Rory ticked off imaginary items on her fingers as they walked Stars Hollow's streets. "I checked at home _and _at the inn before we found you at Miss Patty's, ran by Weston'sand anywhere else that serves cake and coffee, and have called and texted a few times-"

"Over 25?" Logan surmised.

"Probably," Rory conceded. "But it's just so unlike my mom to be unreachable for any length of time! And so like _me_ to worry for no reason, I realize, but…"

Rory and Logan spotted them in the same instant. Luke and Lorelai were emerging from the office of Stars Hollow's attorney. (There were actually a few people in town with law degrees, but only one had managed to avoid disbarment.)

Lorelai gave her daughter an exuberant hug and, after a brief hesitation, offered a slightly more restrained one to the man who would soon become her son in law. Luke and Rory exchanged the slightly more awkward embrace of two moderately reserved people who cared about each other but had never gotten used to showing it with physical affection. Logan, correctly ascertaining that no hug from Luke was in his imminent future, extended his hand.

"Why are you guys suddenly in need of legal assistance?" Rory asked nervously. Lorelai and Luke exchanged a look that did nothing to slow down Rory's overactive imagination.

"Did you threaten to kill Taylor again?" Logan asked, desperately attempting to lighten the mood. "I think we've already established that any jury in the known universe will let you off."

"It's nothing!" Lorelai replied, fooling absolutely no one.

"The kind of nothing that's a something we should tell you guys about," Luke said firmly. He was a gruff man who had always shown his surprisingly deep love for Lorelai and her daughter through actions rather than words. For him to initiate the kind of talk that seemed to begin with a capital T and implied the exchange of feelings about something other than woodworking or baseball was not something that Rory considered an especially auspicious sign.

"We could enjoy the Hawaiian Hoedown first," Lorelai offered hopefully, with the air of someone who knows her suggestion will be shot down but feels compelled to make it anyway. "Just have fun and-"

There were two people who could effectively jolt the whimsical Lorelai back to reality with a mere look. Fortunately, both of them happened to be present.

"…or, you know, save the fun for when we might need a dose of it post-talk," she concluded, gracious in defeat. Lorelai put one arm around Rory and used the other to swig from her neon pink thermos of coffee. "I'll try to say this in as few words as possible, which you know for me means limiting it to a mere few hundred per minute as opposed to the usual few thousand…"

Lorelai proceeded to use those words to solve-or at least elucidate-the mysteries of her recent withdrawal from Stars Hollow society. All four of them looked at one another once Lorelai had concluded her typically witty and colorful monologue, knowing that their lives were about to change forever.

_To Be Continued…. _


	4. Chapter 4

**Dear Best Readers on the Planet: I hope you can forgive me for lying to you! I had promised that this chapter would be the last, but these loquacious and conflicted characters had other ideas****So the NEXT chapter will be my fifth and final…stop laughing at me! I mean it this time! I can't tell you how grateful I am for the encouraging feedback and support. It really does mean the world to me. A special thanks to the talented juniemomo for helping in countless ways.**

**Chapter 4**

Lorelai Gilmore had spent as many of her adult hours in Luke's Diner as in her own home. For years, she and Luke would banter and bicker in front of Rory and any other customers hoping to get their fill of food and small town news, many of whom would shake their heads with a mixture of affection and annoyance and place bets on when these two scarily stubborn people would finally, officially become more than friends. It was after the diner was closed that Luke and Lorelai's more substantive conversations would take place. Lorelai was ostensibly sociable and widely adored, but had surprisingly few people in her life whom she could or would trust. Luke, taciturn and guarded to the point where he often drew comparisons to a human fortress, found that only with and for Lorelai would he willingly string together more than a few sentences at a time. While Luke wiped down the counter and Lorelai took ever so dainty gulps at what by then was her ninth or tenth cup of coffee of the day, they would trade anecdotes, confidences and dreams of a future that each secretly hoped would include the other. Granted, Luke tended to give the Cliff Notes versions of his own thoughts while Lorelai's were always cheerfully unabridged. Once they were finally ready to let go of their past resentments, present fears, and ethical differences over just how many pairs of Lorelai's shoes should be allowed to live in their bedroom closet, they melded their heretofore separate lives together. They fell naturally into a rhythm of telling their shared stories to other people. Lorelai provided the feeling and flair while Luke, in fewer words and with far less movement of his proudly unmanicured hands, gave the unfiltered facts. And it seemed-based on the fact that they had started walking over there without even consciously realizing it- that it was still their instinct to have some of their most significant conversations at Luke's Diner when it was closed to everyone other than the man who had inherited the building from his beloved father and the woman who had fallen in love with him there across the coffee-splattered countertop.

Once Luke, Lorelai, Rory and Logan settled into their seats, Luke distributed the homemade mocha butterscotch crunch cake he had whipped up earlier that day along with giant, steaming mugs of his strongest coffee. Lorelai demonstrated her appreciation by kissing him before proceeding to devour three supersized pieces of the decadent dessert.

"Don't you love getting to enjoy so many meals with the two least calorie conscious women on the planet? I've always felt like letting yourself love food equates to letting yourself love life in general, you know?" Logan gave his future father-in-law a hopeful smile. Logan had been never been especially effective in his attempts to bond with the man who seemed to suspect that earnest charm was actually smarm, that privileged childhoods unfailingly yielded spoiled and arrogant adults, and that no mere mortal could possibly be good enough for the girl Luke had viewed as a surrogate daughter long before beginning to date her mother.

After seeing that Luke was content to reply with a silent nod, Lorelai hastened to fill in the conversational gap. "I've always considered our unapologetic gluttony to be among our finest qualities. In fact, I would totally start a petition for God to strike that one off the list of seven deadly sins if I could figure out who to email it to. Do you ever consider how much women could accomplish if we channeled all the mental energy we waste fretting about superficial inanity-(and you know I say this as someone at least as into clothes and shoes and everything they sell at Sephora as the average female, if not more so)-into achieving loftier goals?"

"Like, for example, starting _and_ finishing conversations that you keep trying to avoid having?" Luke grumbled, but he put his arm around his wife's shoulders and held her close.

Eventually, with Rory asking more pointed questions than she ever had in her short-lived stint as a journalist, Luke giving her succinct but candid responses and Lorelai and Logan trying (with rather mixed success) to keep everyone's spirits up along the way, they were all up to date on the heretofore mysterious events of Lorelai and Luke's past few months.

The couple had discovered they wanted a child more desperately than either could ever have anticipated, and as both Luke and Lorelai had always been highly industrious, they quickly got to work on trying to attain this shared goal. "It didn't-and won't ever-work," Luke said. He glanced at Lorelai and then at some invisible spot on the wall before he was ready to shift his concerned gaze back to his wife.

"Biology can be an awfully nefarious foe," Lorelai said, flashing a brave, albeit not entirely convincing, smile. "We sure had a lot of fun trying, though, didn't we? This one time…"

Rory blushed and buried her face behind the nearest menu, much to Logan and Lorelai's mutual amusement.

Never ones to give up on each other - or, for that matter, anyone or anything else, even when it might be easier and wiser to do so - Luke and Lorelai then began the arduous process of adopting. "They wanted to know at least 50 million details about us." Luke, who valued his privacy to the point where he refused to give his real name and birthday to the employee at Taylor's Soda Shoppe who had promised a free sundae, couldn't suppress a slight shudder. "Only about five or six of which seemed remotely relevant!"

Twice over the past few months, the adoption agency had called excitedly to report finding a promising match. Both times, the agency had made markedly less excited followup calls to report that those matches had fallen through.

Rory, whose large blue eyes grew even larger whenever she was emotional, moved her chair so close to her mother's that she was practically on the poor woman's lap. "Oh, mom…I'm so sorry. And I'm even sorrier that I can't think of anything more helpful to say than that I'm sorry."

Lorelai started to say three different things before uncharacteristically electing to remain silent. She kissed the top of her daughter's head and then breezily attributed her watery eyes and stuffed up nose to the fact that she must be allergic to Rory's shampoo. Logan and Luke kindly pretended to believe her.

"Anyway," Lorelai continued firmly, "like fairy tales, those Regency Romance novels you don't think I know you used to read on the sly and the seediest massage parlors, this story has a happy ending."

"You're going to be the next octamom?" Rory asked hopefully.

Lorelai gave a dramatic shudder. "I said a _happy_ ending, my dear demonic spawn, not one likely to cause mass self-immolation. Liz and TJ called…"

"Yeah, I know," Luke said, correctly reading Rory and Logan's expressions. Like most people who spoke a little less, he tended to notice a little more. "Not many good stories begin with the line "Liz and TJ called…" Usually when my sister and her husband call from whichever state they're living in that week we're tempted to retreat permanently to the bomb shelter I haven't even built-"

"Yet," Lorelai interjected loyally.

"-but this time it turned out they had a friend-a very young one who makes Liz seem like the pillar of maturity and responsibility by contrast-who had twins a few years ago, Ellie and Edward. She did her best, or at least 'best' as Liz would define it, but it's turned out to be two more babies than this woman was expecting to have or is able to handle."

"And that's why you saw us coming out of that lawyer's office," Luke concluded. "Liz's friend needs someone to raise those kids…and, well, we want to do that raising."

"We would have gone to someone in Hartford or New Haven, but Stars Hollow's lawyers tend to have a certain healthy disrespect for the actual letter of the law that really speaks to us," Lorelai added. "We figured we'd better get something drawn up before this one continues the long, proud tradition of disbarment among the attorneys who set up shop here. And while we were totally open to abduction and all that, this seems like a chance to be parents that's less likely to get us incarcerated."

There was a brief silence during which Logan and Rory took this in and Lorelai happily helped herself to another piece of cake.

"But what if the biological parents eventually want their kids back?" Rory asked worriedly. "What if these twins are genetically predisposed to some sort of awful disease or becoming serial killers or the kind of people who talk in movie theaters? What if when you get there to pick them up, they've already developed an attachment to their mom and-"

"We're so happy for you," Logan interjected loudly, gently pressing his loafer-clad foot against Rory's leg.

"Oh, god, yes, of course we are," Rory agreed, jumping up to give them both a hug. "Did my flurry of killjoy nitpicks somehow fail to capture that? It's just that…"

"-That the new and unknown is always scary," Lorelai finished. She kindly refrained from pointing out that it had always been even scarier to her sweetly neurotic, rigid daughter than most. "But this is an amazing gift for us. You don't always-or even often-get exactly what you want in the way you think you want it, but you find a way to be happy anyway. And sometimes that means taking risks to get it. This is one we're more than willing to take."

"My thoughts exactly!" Logan exclaimed. "Now, do you get to go get them tonight? Are we all taking an impromptu road trip? I have an ipod full of songs that you'll all pretend to despise but secretly want to sing along with…"

Rory's eyes, still hinting at deep emotions which she had never been especially adept at expressing, even and especially to those she loved most, now rolled in good-natured exasperation. "It's a good thing Logan and my mom have us to temper their impulsivity with actual sense," Rory said, grinning at Luke. Her mind flashed back to certain memories she hadn't even known she'd retained. Luke valiantly continuing to teach her seven-year-old self to ride a bike so that she could fit in better with her classmates-despite both of them detecting early on that she had the balance and coordination of someone who had just gulped down a gallon of Miss Patty's infamously lethal punch and that she, like her self-appointed cycling instructor, wouldn't quite fit in with her peers no matter how expert a bike rider she became. Luke showing up with an entire pharmacy's worth of medicine and all of her favorite foods every time she was sick and no matter how mild the ailment. Luke offering to take her to her elementary school's Daddy Daughter Dance when he silently observed that Rory's biological father couldn't or wouldn't attend, despite making it amusingly clear that he found that sort of event both torturous and vaguely creepy. Luke staying up all night to build her an impressively convincing replica of a then-popular toy that she and her mother couldn't afford to buy. (Rory had assured him it was better than the original, and while she hadn't completely meant it then, she did now.) Luke closing his diner and forcing himself to abandon the comfort of his usual flannels and jeans long enough to squeeze into a suit and shyly but proudly clap along with her mother and grandparents as she received her diploma. "And it's a good thing Edward and Ellie will have you, too, Luke. And, speaking of life-altering news, Logan and I actually have some of our own…"

It was a good thing that no one else was in the restaurant to hear the high-pitched celebratory sounds coming out of Rory and Lorelai's (and, for just a moment or two, Logan's) mouths. Rory couldn't help but worry that her mother's smile didn't _quite_cover as much as her face as usual, but then she realized that she was probably just perceiving things from her own paranoid perspective rather than how they actually were. As Logan reminded her gently but with considerable frequency, she had a tendency to believe that her imaginary worries had become realities. She glanced affectionately at her fiancé, who was still heartily shaking Luke's hand, patting him on the back and not appearing to mind in the least that Luke wasn't doing much handshaking and back patting in return.

Patience is indeed a virtue, but it had never been among those possessed by Lorelai Gilmore. She began enthusiastically toddler-prepping her house as soon as they stepped back into it and announced that they would begin the drive to West Virginia to pick up the family's new and unexpected additions the day after tomorrow. Luke, who was never happier than when he had an excuse to use his toolbox, began excitedly building and installing shelves for the absurd amounts of clothes, books and toys he knew Lorelai would begin purchasing early the next morning 24 and continue accumulating for the remainder of their lives. It was quickly discovered that Logan's eagerness to assist with this type of labor greatly outweighed his actual ability to do so.

"You know, I'll bet you could be of even better use…elsewhere," Luke ended up saying, after Logan nearly poked out both eyes with a single screwdriver. This dismissal was, by Luke's standards, the height of diplomacy. "But, hey, thanks for trying. And for never treating Rory in a way that forces me to threaten you with bodily harm."

Logan lingered in the doorway, not quite ready to go just as Luke had favored him with such high praise. "So…any tips on how to be the perfect partner to a Gilmore girl?"

Luke looked up from his hammering long enough to grin. "Yeah…I learned from personal experience that if a long lost 12-year-old daughter pops out from some soap opera and into your real life, don't wait too long to mention this little development to Rory or to introduce her to the Long Lost Daughter in question."

"Ah, yes, well, who _doesn't _that happen to?" April had burst unexpectedly into Luke's life not too long after he and Lorelai had gotten together. Their inability to deal with this particular prepubescent surprise together-or, for a while, to deal with it at all-had led to the couple temporarily breaking up, temporarily traumatizing each other, themselves and the residents of their overly invested hometown before finding their way to a merciful reunion. Logan wondered briefly what surprises would come hurtling his and Rory's way, realized immediately that they wouldn't be surprises if one could foresee and prepare for them, and instead just confidently reminded himself that he and Rory had already handled their share of potholes on their own proverbial road but had determined the journey was still well worth taking.

"And never bother getting jealous about no longer significant 'significant others'-even if one of them happens to be my nephew. There's nothing like dwelling on each other's pasts to ruin the present."

"The jealousy thing never worked out too well for Othello," Logan agreed. "Very sage advice."

Luke glanced at him and, apparently satisfied that Logan was being sincere rather than sarcastic, gave the younger man a genuine smile. "A casual Shakespeare reference…I'd imagine Rory must like that about you."

"I gather you don't?" teased Logan, but Luke had already moved on.

"You might also want to keep in mind that your relationship never really needs anyone's approval other than your own," Luke muttered, as much to himself as to Logan. "I remind myself of that one before every single bit of contact with Lorelai's parents."

"Actually," Logan admitted, heartened by the fact that these were by far the most words Luke had ever spoken to him, "I suspect that Rory's grandparents might approve of our marriage far more than Lorelai does. Before they see my current checking account balance, that is."

Logan hoped that Luke might contradict him, but Luke just rather pointedly picked up a drill.

Lorelai believed in celebrating any and all occasions, ranging from the year's first snowfall to Ice Cream for Breakfast Day (which technically fell on the first Saturday of February, though Lorelai made it a point to honor that one several times per year). It was therefore unthinkable that she would depart for West Virginia to meet her new three-year-old children without doing something to honor the one whom she had already known and loved for well over two decades. She woke up early to make Rory a very special breakfast.

"But the hot fudge sundae Pop Tarts are her very favorite," she explained to Luke a half hour later, as her scowling husband extracted their burnt remains from the toaster. "And she likes them crispy around the edges, so I may have left them in there just a _little_longer than-"

"This was our third early morning visit from the volunteer fire department since we got married," Luke pointed out, refilling his wife's "_Normal People Scare Me"_coffee mug. He used to try to convince her to drink less coffee, but they had soon figured out that the key to their happiness was accepting each other's idiosyncrasies rather than striving to change them. More to the point, witnessing the effects of caffeine deprivation on his wife's normally high spirits had Luke vowing to ensure she had ample amounts of coffee on hand for the rest of their lives.

"And since this is Stars Hollow, the "department" consists of the same five guys…four if you don't count Kirk. I tried to convince Joe that I'm a serial arsonist. It's so much less embarrassing than the truth." Lorelai wrapped her arms around Luke's waist. "I guess now that I'm going to be a mom again, I wanted to prove that I could do mom-ish things, like use the toaster without setting our house aflame."

Rory wandered into the kitchen and surveyed the lingering clouds of smoke with the calm, resigned air of someone who had witnessed this same scene all too many times before. Lorelai smiled wistfully when she saw that Rory was clad in the same oversized flannel pajamas she had so often worn as a teenager, back when she lived in this home with Lorelai full time. Before she had grown up and met Logan Huntzberger.

"You have so many skills that earned you that Best Mom Ever mug I made for you-and accidentally broke two days later, but that's a different conversation." Rory selected one of the Gilmores' many giant mugs that were still safely intact and poured herself a cup of steaming coffee. "You can sew, your party planning and gift giving skills are second to none, you're even better at listening to other people than you are at talking yourself (and since you clock in at 153 words per minute, that's no meager feat), you support me even when you totally think I've escalated from more run-of-the-mill Type A nuttiness to certifiable, you know how to pretend you're okay with your kids having privacy and boundaries and tastes that are different from yours even when you're secretly not, you always find the humor (even if it's bad humor, but that still totally counts) in the worst situations, and you clapped louder than any other parent during my one and only dance recital even though I spent half the time on the ground and the other half cowering backstage. You just shouldn't be in the kitchen. Ever."

Luke nodded approvingly and began putting together a breakfast that they could actually consume. "Agreed on all counts. I was going to say the same thing…only in far, far fewer words."

Rory sat across from her mom and studied her with the usual intensity that anyone other than Lorelai might find disconcerting. In the early morning light, before Lorelai had fueled herself with enough coffee to dress or put her makeup on, Rory noticed with a twinge of something she couldn't quite identify that her mom-like any other mere mortal-had aged. Beautifully and gracefully, of course, but undeniably. Lorelai had twice as much energy and exuberance as women half her age, though, and Rory knew better than anyone else on the planet that Lorelai would be an uncommonly loving mother to her two new children. Hopefully she would pass on the grit, optimism and love of life's easily overlooked pleasures that the slightly more restrained, introspective Rory sometimes wished she had inherited in larger measure. And perhaps one day in the not _too_distant future the woman who had sacrificed so much and complained so little while raising her would earn a World's Best Grandmother mug as well…

"So I've been thinking…"

Lorelai winced in mock agony. "Have we not discussed that too much thinking is inversely correlated with happiness? Have I taught you nothing?"

"Logan says the exact same thing," Rory pointed out eagerly. "You two have so much in common!"

Lorelai looked markedly less thrilled at hearing this revelation than Rory had been to share it, so the latter moved on hastily. "Anyway, I'm so glad that things are finally working out for you guys when it comes to Project Progeny, but I hate that you were going through so much pain for so long and…not to make this about _me,_obviously_-"_

"We're Gilmores," Lorelai assured her. "It's in the genes. You want to know why I didn't vent said pain to the person who's always been my favorite ventee?" She glanced affectionately over at her husband, who was carefully adding just the right number of chocolate chips to Rory's pancakes. "Tied with Luke, of course."

Luke raised his spatula in silent acknowledgement.

"I guess I just knew you would want to do something to help and feel awful when you realized you couldn't," Lorelai said, clearly only figuring this out as the words came tumbling out of her mouth. "And why have both of us feeling awful unless absolutely necessary?"

Rory was spared the difficulty of formulating a reply to this rhetorical question by Logan's entrance. The younger man was unable to suppress his sigh of relief when he saw that it was Luke preparing their breakfast and eagerly offered to help.

"I'll throw you a real engagement party once we're back with the kids and semi-settled-hey, Luke, do you realize we'll probably never feel more than _semi_-settled again? These two little monsters are going to be throwing our lives into constant upheaval. I can't wait!"

They all waited expectantly for Luke's sarcastic retort, but none was forthcoming. Instead, he allowed himself a broad, spontaneous smile, the kind that manages to transform one's entire face.

"Awww…he's mellowing with age," teased Rory, earning a look from Luke designed to make her hurriedly revise that assessment. "Anyway, we don't need a party."

"We really don't," agreed Logan. "Although a small_,_totally casual celebration could be fun…"

Rory grinned. Her sociable fiance's idea of "small and totally casual" gatherings tended to differ from her own.

"We could plan a Jane Austen-themed party!" Lorelai clapped her hands, currently glowing with neon pink polish, with the usual gleeful excitement she exhibited over things that may never actually happen. Though now the owner of an inn, she had spent the majority of her career planning the events that took place there, and it was still the aspect of her job that she loved best. "Rory and I adore every single one of the 12 million film and TV adaptations even though one of us-you can guess which-is too intellectually lazy to reread the books. And I can handle designing and sewing a few authentic-looking gowns along with a pair of sexy britches (not an oxymoron, by the way) for Luke, right? Right. Of course I can!"

Luke and Rory exchanged a grin. Lorelai had a convenient way of quickly answering her own questions when no one else wanted to take on that role.

"Logan likes Jane Austen, too," Rory said rather pointedly, slathering syrup over the stack of pancakes that Luke had proudly placed before her.

"Oh, well, that's wonderful. I want Logan to love this party every bit as much as you will," Lorelai said, and while the words were perfectly gracious, her tone managed to imply just the opposite.

"I think it sounds fantastic," Logan said. He gave Lorelai an eager smile. "I welcome the opportunity to prove that I am _not_the only straight man in the universe who's a fan."

"I just wish Wickham had gotten what was coming to him at the end of Pride and Prejudice!" Luke burst out, shaking his head. "Maybe there's a slightly bloodier sequel in the works?"

They all gazed wonderingly at him before Luke jumped up to make more coffee and suggested rather firmly that they change the topic.

"I wish I didn't have to go to work today," Rory said. "I mean, the school is only 42 minutes away-and no jokes about me accidentally killing off more wildlife on my drive over there, please-but I'd so much rather stay here to finish setting up Ellie and Edward's bedrooms."

"That's what I'm here for," Logan said gallantly. "And to help Luke and Lorelai pack and load the car, of course. And to pick up any supplies you guys realize you need…as long as you can give me tips on how to most effectively annoy Taylor while I'm at Doose's. I'm still a Stars Hollow amateur, you know."

Lorelai glanced at Luke, whose eyes remained determinedly fixed on his pancakes. "How nice!" Lorelai said, in a voice that didn't sound quite like her own. "But I'm sure you must have to go work, too, Logan…don't you?"

Now it was the younger couple's turn to exchange glances.

"Well, I'm still working at that marketing firm about 20 hours a week and doing some freelance tutoring, so that leaves me plenty of time to-"

"-To decide how he wants to spend his last couple of weeks of comparative freedom before accepting the full-time position at Mark It Up," Rory broke in. She sounded a bit out of breath despite the fact that her only exertion that morning had involved the frequent lifting of her fork. "Full time (I mentioned that part, right?), stable, respectable, dental insurance as long as you don't need anything other than a 10 minute checkup every couple of years. We just didn't want to say anything until he had made it official."

It was only once Lorelai felt her muscles relax that she realized she had been clenching them. "Oh, I'm so relieved! I have to admit that I had been so worried about you two tying the knot-and why _is_marriage referred to as "tying the knot," by the way? It sounds vaguely punitive and painful, or I suppose for some people sort of kinky-"

"_Mom!"_Rory choked on a piece of pancake.

Lorelai gave her daughter a comforting, though not especially apologetic, pat on her hand. "Well, in any case, I'm very relieved to hear that you'll both be so secure and established by the time you marry. I heard on one of those talk shows that no one admits to watching that financial strain is the number one cause of marital conflict and divorce. That and probably a lack of se-"

"MOM!" Rory's normally soft voice had reached maximum volume.

"Seriously, I'm so proud." She made a point of including Logan in her room-brightening smile. "Of _both_of you. Who knew this visit would hold so many amazing surprises?!"

"I sure didn't," Logan mumbled. Rory peered him at anxiously, looking for traces of her fiance's usual grin. The man even smiled reflexively in his sleep, as if he were always dreaming of things more blissful than even their waking selves could contemplate. Now, though, his mouth was turned downward. And those unusually expressive eyes of his were saying something she was fairly sure she didn't want to hear.

By mid-afternoon, Luke's Diner was filled with Stars Hollow residents who were even hungrier for gossip than for the locally renowned cheeseburgers. Luke, the diner's owner and the usual maker of said cheeseburgers, hadn't come to work for the second consecutive day. The locals had somehow learned the exact reason for his absence, and it seemed that each and every one of them felt contractually obligated to offer an opinion on it.

_"Good for the Gilmore-Danes' for not allowing biology to determine their destiny. There's something almost poetic about how Lorelai has actually found her life changed for the better_ twice_by an unexpected teen pregnancy, only one of which was her own. Perhaps we should have the Troubadour compose a little song about it. It's got to be better than the one he wrote about Tilly's recent bout with Phronemophobia."_

_"I'll bet the biological mom comes back to kidnap the kids one day and tries to erase poor Luke and Lorelai's memories in the process-I've seen that happen on at least three different Lifetime movies, so it must be a very common phenomenon."_

_"If the biological parents are anything like Liz and TJ, Luke and Lorelai are going to have a whole lot of hair-graying angst ahead of them. Not that I don't wish them well, of course. You know how much I like those two. But sometimes it's just so much more entertaining and amusing when things_don't _go smoothly for people, especially when it makes our own lives seem easier by contrast…what do you mean I'm a terrible person? Honest people are always being called terrible for saying what others secretly think!"_

_"I offered to have Luke's baby so many times. I can't imagine why he didn't take me up on it…"_

This last lament was uttered by a woman whom Logan had heard referred to as Crazy Carrie. The woman, Logan noticed with a smile, was now climbing on top of the nearest table for no discernible reason. Some people seem to make it their mission to live down to their less-than-glowing reputations. He knew this firsthand, as he used to fall into that category.

Logan, whose obligatory appearances at various events with his parents had trained him in the art of small talk with virtual strangers while some kids his age were still mastering finger painting, answered questions in a pleasant and engaged manner that distracted his listeners from realizing he hadn't provided much information. He welcomed the friendly chatter as a break from the disconcerting, circuitous conversations with himself that he didn't especially want to have. After devouring the best grilled cheese sandwich he had ever tasted-really, he could never get over just how much tastier he found diner food than the cuisine served at the overpriced restaurants he had been exposed to in his youth-Logan headed to Doose's to pick up some things his future in-laws needed and some that they probably didn't. Logan prolonged this errand longer than was strictly necessary, both because he enjoyed listening to the snatches of amusing chatter Stars Hollow residents could always be relied upon to provide and because, after a stiflingly pampered childhood, he had grown to enjoy feeling useful and purposeful. Stocking up on supplies that Luke, Lorelai and their soon-to-arrive offspring would need made him feel that way. His job at Mark It Up did not. _His job. _Logan tried to ignore the rather graphic image of a soul being crushed (and then set ablaze and run over by a conveniently passing 18-wheeler-_Jess Mariano wasn't_, he reflected grimly, _the only one who could be dark on occasion_) that sprung to mind whenever he heard those words. The job that Rory clearly wanted to be better and stable than it actually was, to the point where she had presented that fiction as reality to her mother that morning. Logan did have a vague offer to increase his hours, but it was one neither of them had seriously considered accepting-or so he had thought. Logan covered a sigh with a smile at no one in particular and headed back to the Gilmores' home with his five bags' worth of purchases and a few warnings from Taylor not to let the notoriously junk food-addicted Lorelai decide what the toddlers should eat or the fashion-oblivious Luke pick out their clothes.

There was nothing worse than feeling badly about something you knew perfectly well you had no right to feel that badly about. Logan, who had always coped by being as obstinately cheerful and optimistic as reality would allow, and sometimes more so, regarded angst as his mortal enemy even during times in his life when it might have been justified to succumb to it-and certainly when it wasn't. _My life is preternaturally amazing_, he reminded himself firmly. He was engaged to the only woman he ever had or could love. He had good friends, some of whom he actually liked and respected. He had a close relationship with his sister, the usually aptly named Honor, and a truce with his parents. (Granted, one which they maintained only by contacting one another as infrequently as possible.) There were a whole lot of things he loved to see and do and learn about and remember and look forward to and eat. And, really, hardly anyone seemed to derive much real joy and fulfillment from their jobs these days. What made him think he deserved to be among the few lucky exceptions to that rule?

When you thought of it - and it seemed he was stuck doing just that, even though he didn't particularly want to - wasn't there a dangerously thin line between having high hopes and expectations and being a spoiled brat who believes he's entitled to more good fortune than any humble, realistic human being would think he has a right to possess? _Spoiled brat._As the son of a multimillionaire media mogul, Logan had been labeled a spoiled brat - and as many other, less G-rated terms for what amounted to the same thing - for as long as he could recall. Sometimes that assumption had been wholly undeserved. Other times, it hadn't been, but that was more about the carelessly complacent kid he had been in the past than the man he was today. Or so he hoped.

Logan's reverie was interrupted by the sound of a vaguely familiar voice calling his name. He turned to find Lane Kim, Rory's oldest friend and in certain ways the one to whom she felt the most emotionally attached. Lane was as unconditionally supportive of Rory as Paris was candid and frighteningly challenging. The twin Kim boys were in tow, both clad in T-shirts boasting their love for obscure indie bands that Logan had never heard of. They seemed well on their way to following in their music-obsessed parents' footsteps. Logan found himself wondering if one day he and Rory would have children - preferably those who magically inherited all of their assets and none of their shortcomings, thank you very much - and then warned his mind that this was too dangerous a daydream to indulge in at the moment. Lane assured him quite convincingly that she was every bit as excited about their upcoming nuptials as he and Rory were and volunteered to do everything short of committing a felony to help along the way.

"I'm glad to hear that mere misdemeanors haven't been ruled out," Logan said.

"Seriously, I want details on the wedding," Lane said. "Knowing your penchant for grand gestures, I'm thinking maybe you'll have it on a gorgeous little island with some name I can't pronounce? In a castle? On the moon? Just between us, I'd far rather wear a spacesuit than the typical bridesmaid dress."

Logan had to put a little more effort into keeping his amiable smile in place. "I guess it will depend on…certain factors…"

"Money," Lane said knowingly. "Yeah. Rory mentioned things have been a little tight. But don't worry, Logan. Rory is used to budgeting. She's actually geeky enough to _enjoy_budgeting, compiling tons of spreadsheets and lists and adding tasks she doesn't even need to do just so she can have the satisfaction of checking them off!"

"Yes, well…I aim to please."

Logan bid Lane and her children a fond farewell and continued his walk back to Luke and Lorelai's house. Only he found himself taking a slightly different route - one that happened to take him past the Mystery Elucidators headquarters. Logan leaned against the entranceway, not quite ready to commit to going inside. The town's mechanic, a petite female of indeterminate ethnicity who had long opted to go by Gypsy over whatever name her parents had thrust upon her, was reporting her progress on the agency's first official case: the incident of Al's missing cooking supplies. It had been quickly ascertained that a group of his most dissatisfied and dyspeptic customers had stolen them in hopes that Al would be forced to find a less dangerous line of work. "You'd be surprised what I hear while working under people's cars," Gypsy said proudly. "People forget I'm there until I slide back out, and by then they're too busy agonizing about the exorbitant bill I'm about to hand them to care about anything they might have let pop out of their cake holes."

"I suppose we'll get better, more complex and TV-worthy cases once _he_ starts working for us," Kirk mused, and everyone's gaze obediently followed his finger to where it was now pointing - directly at Logan.

"I feel like I walked into a movie when it's already halfway over. And like I might be in the wrong theater." Realizing that non-Rory people didn't always get his random references, he smiled and hurriedly offered the clearer English translation: "I think I may have missed something. I never accepted an offer to work here. I was never given an offer in the first place."

"I just assumed it was understood," Kirk said, surprised. "We're not exactly sticklers for formality around here."

"But…what would I even do? Hypothetically, that is."

"Marketing. Communications. Charming people into giving you information. You have skills and connections that we don't, so you could help in pretty much any and every way you wanted to…I did mention that we're not too big on structure here, right?"

"Speak for yourself," said the structure-loving Taylor with an injured little sniff. He had left his market right after Logan did and had probably calculated exactly how many seconds remained before he would have to return. "But I suppose I can't argue that this young man, knowing people we don't and perhaps being slightly less apt than many of us to alienate both clients and suspects, might be of use to our fledging enterprise."

"Of use," Logan echoed, not realizing he was doing so out loud. This was just what the erstwhile idle party boy had been longing to be. And what job could provide him with more of the fun and adventure he was constitutionally predisposed to crave than working as a quasi-detective? Granted, this was a position that afforded very little stability and security, especially if by "very little" one meant "virtually none at all." Rory would be anxious, maybe even disappointed. Rory, who had nursed him back to health after an accident he was stupid enough to bring on himself (could one even accurately label that as an 'accident'?), who had forgiven him for more than a few things he probably didn't deserve forgiveness for, who had helped him evolve into a better man without ever demanding that he change who he truly was, and who let him know every single day that he was loved…even when he wasn't at his most lovable.

Logan bid the currently present members of ME a polite but brief farewell and resumed his walk back to his fiance's childhood home. He was a block or two away when he paused on one of the cutely named, charmingly bucolic street corners and fumbled for his phone. After reminding the Mark It Up receptionist of who he was, he was relieved to be directed to his boss's voicemail.

"I made a decision about your very generous offer-the one you probably don't even recall extending to me. If could call me back whenever you're free…" Logan stifled the thought that he hoped she would remain too busy to deal with a lower rung employee for the next day or two. Or three. Or four….

As Logan stuffed his phone back into his pocket, he thought he heard the sound of footsteps beating a hasty retreat. He pivoted around on his loafers but saw no one and nothing at all. _Just the sharp-eyed, nothing-gets-by-me detective skills ME is looking for_, Logan thought wryly, and hurried back to the Gilmores. He hoped Rory had returned home from work. They had some very important talking to do.


End file.
